With the original proposals for Bond Lake work dying due to bureaucracy, a WNYMBA member who is an attorney offered to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to offer as an alternative to the Contract that the county legal folks wanted signed. This was drafted up in 2009. However, with the original champions of the project out of the picture, the original plans for the trails were no longer available and were lost.

In early 2010, the plans were found in a bunch of grainy scans, and at the same time, Brandon S. and Dave K. stepped up to try to push this project forward. They scouted out the proposed route of the first new trail, and developed the red GPS track below:

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There's not a lot of riding in the Northtowns. This is basically due to extensive suburbanization and farming, lack of public land, and when there is public land, a lot of it is on the clay of the post-glacial Lake Tonawanda or Lake Iroquois, which means it is flat and non-draining and hence very poorly suited for trails.

However, there fortunately is some public land along the Niagara Escarpment, which would be great for trails: Bond Lake.

The push for trails at Bond Lake started with Dudley for the former "shifting gears" bike shop as well as Steve O. They met with the Niagara County Parks department and developed a plan for some new trail development in 2006. Dudley and Steve's plan was well received by the parks department, and trail work days were scheduled for 2007. Unfortunately, the County (not the parks people, but rather the legal department across the street) threw a wrench into the plans by requiring not only rafts of insurance (some of which was obtainable through WNYMBA) but also wanted WNYMBA to sign a contract accept liability forever for anyone that ever feels like suing the county. Not only was this patently unacceptable, but is not required anywhere else where volunteers build trails, and ignores the fact that the General Obligations Law shields the county from lawsuits resulting from recreational use of their land. This meant the trail proposals were dead, and Dudley and Steve moved onto other things.

TRAILS

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WNYMBA

Happenings

News

Our insurance company has "strongly suggested" that we tell you that Mountain Biking can be dangerous. If you're visiting this site it's very likely that you're already aware that if you insist on having a good time by riding your mountain bike, eventually you will almost certainly fall down and collect any number of boo-boos, dings and injuries, serious or otherwise, but we have to tell you anyway.

Mountain Biking is a potentially hazardous activity carrying a significant risk of bodily injury and even death. Mountain biking should only be undertaken if you have a complete awareness of these risks. You can reduce the level of risk by wearing a helmet and by riding within your own skill level.